Ubisoft launches movie and TV studio to adapt its own games

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Ubisoft is apparently tired of the way major Hollywood studios treat video game properties. The company has launched Ubisoft Motion Pictures as a way to adapt its own games and franchises into feature films and television shows without the help of Hollywood or any major American studio, for that matter.

Ubisoft is based in France, so the new Ubisoft Motion Pictures will be also. The new studio will work out of Paris, and the company has lined up former executives at EuropaCorp and Walt Disney Studios France to head the organization. With a team like that, Ubisoft will already have the connections and experience required to get movie or television properties out the door and onto screens around the globe.

Some of the company’s top properties are Assassin’s Creed and Splinter Cell, and people have been speculating about feature films based on both sets of IP for years. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time came to the big screen last year, and even though critics panned the film, it did respectably well at the box office, grossing over $335 million in sales. Even the fact that one of the original writers behind Prince of Persia was behind the movie script didn’t help the film turn into a blockbuster. Still, the money the film did generate managed to make it the most successful film adaptation of a video game in history.

Ubisoft is likely interested in taking more of an active role in its own destiny. It’s possible that part of Ubisoft’s desire is to make sure that movie and TV adaptations of its games are truthful to the spirit and intent of the titles, but they also likely see the writing on the wall: movies based on video games are a rising industry, and there’s no reason to let someone else shoot the movie and they sit on the sidelines when Ubisoft could be in the director’s seat.